1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a computer based human-centered display for e.g. a vehicle, and particularly to a display in which important operational and positional information are displayed to the person(s) controlling the vehicle in a way designed to provide immediate comprehension by that person of the location, orientation and operational parameters of the vehicle. The principles of the invention are particularly useful in providing a display to person(s) controlling an aircraft, i.e. either the pilot(s) flying the aircraft or, in the case of a remotely controlled vehicle, the remotely located human controlling the vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Current state-of-the-art instrumentation in a cockpit is usefully categorized into flight, engine, weather, and radios instruments. The flight instruments consist of several discrete displays that must be individually viewed. Information from several of these discrete displays is required for the pilot to form a mental image of the aircraft""s position and flight path. During instrument flight, the pilot maintains a rigorous scan of these flight instruments and cannot afford to let the scan of the flight instruments xe2x80x9cbreak down,xe2x80x9d since safe instrument flight requires the pilot to maintain an accurate mental model of the aircraft""s position and flight path. This mental model depends upon the information obtained from the flight instruments. If the scan does break down, it takes time to restart the information collection as well as update and correct the mental model (15 and 18). The time a pilot takes to view and interpret the flight instruments limits the speed with which the pilot can respond as well as the time and resources the pilot has to allocate to all the other tasks necessary to fly the aircraft. It is only after considerable training and experience that a pilot is adequate for this demanding task. If the vehicle were e.g. a remote controlled aircraft or a remote controlled submarine, in which a human controlling the vehicle but located remotely from the vehicle was being fed the same type of information as a pilot as to the operation, orientation and location of the vehicle, the same type of problems would be present. To overcome these difficulties requires a totally different approach to a human centered information display for e.g. a cockpit or a remotely located human controller, is provided. That solution is sometimes referred to herein as xe2x80x9cOZxe2x80x9d.
The problem underlying the invention, and the solution described below, are described in connection with a cockpit display for a pilot flying an aircraft, but it will be clear to those in the art that the principles of the invention are applicable to various types of vehicles and/or other operational environments in which rapid human centered perception of an operational environment is required.
Problem
All conventional flight instrument displays require directed focal attention; the pilot must look at, or at least near, each instrument. To understand what the aircraft is doing, the pilot has to interpret what the instrument is indicating, and integrate that information with information from the other instruments. These requirements introduce substantial perceptual delays and a significant mental workload. For example, since viewing one instrument requires a minimum of about 200 milliseconds, the fastest that 5 instruments can be viewed is about 1 second (21). These delays severely limit pilots"" ability to cope with turbulence, rapidly changing situations, and emergencies. Furthermore, when deviations from flight path occur, even substantial ones, the instruments do not grab the pilot""s attention. Thus the pilot must continually scan or monitor the instruments to determine whether the aircraft has strayed from its intended flight path. Because conventional instruments require essentially constant attention, pilots develop rigorous continuous and routinized instrument scan strategies. Moreover, current flight instruments do not share a common frame of reference nor do they facilitate integration with the other three important areas of cockpit instrumentation; engine, weather, and radio instruments. This lack of integration conflicts with the requirements for instrument scan and compounds the problems of instrument flight. In the past, the solutions to these problems have been to severely limit the flight envelope of the aircraft, emphasize specific scan training, and require extensive pilot experience.
Requirements: The Ideal Display
The pilot""s display should allow essentially instantaneous comprehension of aircraft performance, location, and environment. Flight instruments should be designed to grab attention when deviations from flight path occur. Flight instruments should allow for the uninterrupted and effortless comprehension of flight path and spatial localization, even when focal attention is directed toward other tasks. A pilot""s Situational Awareness depends in large part on the ability to integrate many different sources of information. This integration is facilitated when the different instruments, and the real world, use a common frame of reference.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is a display that will provide a pilot with all information to fly the aircraft.
Another object of the invention is to provide a display that clearly informs the pilot of aircraft orientation and movement.
In addition, an object of the invention is an informational display that will not distract the pilot from flying the craft while providing information regardless of where the information is displayed in the visual field.
Still another object of the invention is an informational display that can be used with remotely controlled vehicles and in other operational environments where rapid human centered comprehension of an operational environment is required.
According to a broad aspect of the invention, a vehicle such as an aircraft has a sensing system configured to sense orientation and/or location parameters of the aircraft and a plurality of operational parameters of the aircraft, and a processing system is configured to process the sensed parameters for display on a visual display. An informational display, according to the invention, provides perceptual primitives configured into metaphorical structures whose appearance and locations conveys information simultaneously about the orientation, location and operational parameters of the aircraft, and the processing system is configured to process the sensed parameters and to produce the visual display in perceptual primitives according to the metaphorical structures.
Preferably, the metaphorical structures are configured to convey the information regardless of the extent of a viewer""s visual field (e.g. across the viewer""s central and peripheral vision field), and within a time frame of less than 200 milliseconds.
In a particularly important adaptation of the present invention to a vehicle, the orientation and/or location parameters include orientation and location parameters of the vehicle relative to objects located within a 360 degree field of the vehicle, and the metaphorical structures are configured to display the objects within the 360 degree field of the vehicle in a three dimensional display and to display the movement of the vehicle in the three dimensional display utilizing the angular scale of the three dimensional display.
In a more general application of this principle of the invention to an operational environment such as a vehicle, the orientation and/or location parameters include orientation and location parameters of the vehicle are represented by visual primitives forming a three dimensional display representing an externally stable frame of reference, and the metaphorical structures include a representation of the movement of the vehicle in the three dimensional display utilizing the angular scale of the three dimensional display.
In its more specific application to an aircraft, the present invention integrates all cockpit information into a single display in such a way that the pilot can clearly understand with a glance, his or her spatial orientation, flight performance, engine status and power management issues, radio aids, and the location of other air traffic, runways, weather, terrain features, waypoints, distance, wind, drag, range, and endurance, gravity effects on speed, fuel tank, rpm, engine pressure and temperature, mixture, cowl flaps, landing gear, other aircraft, multiengine procedures including engine out, Space Shuttle display and landing system, sailplane application, With the present invention, the information is presented as an integrated whole, the pilot instantaneously recognizes flight path deviations, and is instinctively drawn to the corrective maneuvers. Our laboratory studies indicate that OZ transfers to the pilot all of the integrated display information in less than 200 milliseconds. The reacquisition of scan can be accomplished just as quickly. Thus, the time constants for forming a mental model are near instantaneous. The pilot""s ability to keep up with rapidly changing and threatening environments is tremendously enhanced.
Moreover, in its application to an aircraft, the invention is most easily compatible with aircraft that has flight path information coded electronically. With the correct sensors (which are currently available) the invention can be installed in essentially all current aircraft. The cost to implement the invention in existing aircraft should not be prohibitive.